Another recipe from my Baking workshop at Leiths, these raisin bran muffins are really 100 times better than they sound. Imagine an Elvenses bar, but better and so quick and easy to make. This recipe can also be found in Leiths Baking Bible. I'll be baking more of these pretty soon, such an easy breakfast to grab on the go!

Makes 12

200ml semi-skimmed milk

115g butter, softened

100g All-Bran cereal

115g golden caster sugar

2 eggs, beaten

170g self raising flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

Half teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Half teaspoon ground cinnamon

140g raisins

Honey and oats for decoration

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees and line a muffin tin with 12 paper cases.

Warm the milk and butter in a saucepan on a low heat until the butter has melted.

Place the cereal and sugar in a bowl, stir in the butter and milk.

Allow to cool to lukewarm before adding the eggs.

Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and raisins. Try to incorporate the mix well without stirring more than 20 times - other wise the muffins will become tough.

Divide between the paper cases and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack before glazing with honey and adding a sprinkle of oats.

Today I attended the 'Cakes and Baking Workshop' at Leiths School of Food and Wine. The workshop was a Christmas present that I've been looking forward to, so much so I enrolled myself on the 8-week writing course and have been spending my Thursday evenings since January learning from Lulu Grimes.

The morning started with coffee and pastries whilst waiting for everyone to assemble in their aprons. I chose a spot to watch the ensuing demonstration where I could defrost my icicle fingers on the gas stove. Our teacher, Andrea, demonstrated two recipes; sticky gingerbread and mini pistachio loaf cakes. The loaf cakes were drizzled with a lemon syrup and decorated with a sprinkle of crushed pistachios and were my favourite of the day...I shall post the recipe when I have tried these out for myself.

Next up was a raspberry sponge cake with elderflower and mascarpone cream. This time we were let loose on our own workstations with the ingredients and tools pre-weighed and organised for us. This is the kind of baking I could get used to - ingredients measured, trays greased and lined, surfaces wiped, washing up done.

For some time now I have toyed with the idea of making my own marshmallows. I'll be honest, recipes like these scare me. Marshmallows, caramel...anything with hot molten sugar. The idea of hovering over a sugar thermometer makes me so anxious.

But since I'm a little bit in love with Bea's of Bloomsbury and would like to master everything that they serve, I decided to be brave. And, it worked. Although I think it may have been a little more beginners luck than anything else.

I used a recipe from Annalise's blog, the measurements are in both American cups and grams etc. After spending what felt like forever reading various recipes and watching YouTube videos, I decided that this one seemed to be the most straightforward.

Late last year a friend and I flew out to New York with a list of sight seeing to fill 7 days. By sight seeing I mean Sprinkle's cupcake ATM, Dylan's Candy Bar, Bosie Tea Parlour.....get the gist? At the top of this list was Balthazar's Boulangerie. I'd heard great things about their macarons and was so excited to finally try them out for myself.

Unfortunately, Hurricane Sandy hit during our first few days in the City and those 7 days were the most surreal I've ever encountered. Our days were spent walking around for hours on end in the wind and rain observing the aftermath. I would feel bad if I said Hurricane Sandy ruined our holiday, so many lost their lives, homes and were subjected to complete devastation, we were fortunate enough to have been staying within the evacuation zone and were completely safe the whole time.

As you can imagine, when I first heard that Balthazar was to open in London I was excited that I'd finally be able to get my sweet tooth around one of their macarons. And that's exactly what I did today. So thank you Mr. McNally for sending your sweet treats across the Atlantic for us to enjoy, you did not disappoint!

Balthazar's Russel Street bread and lunch selection.

Unlike all the rumours I've heard, I didn't have to queue and was served immediately by a very helpful member of staff. Two different breads were recommended to me; a rosemary salted focaccia and a potato-onion roll.

Potato-Onion Roll.

Rosemary Focaccia.

Both entirely different but equally as good. I tried a small hunk of each, before photographing and can safely say that the focaccia with a little bit of balsamic oil is the perfect flavour combination. The roll has a hint of caramelised onions and baked potato but however good it tastes, I'm not sure what to eat with it. Any suggestions?

And finally on to my favourite part...the macaron. I would like to think of myself as a macaron connoisseur (I did take three trips to Paris in 2012 alone) so what I am about to say is based on my professional macaron munching opinion:

This is the best macaron you will ever eat. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise!

I love coffee syrup. I love it so much I carry mini jam jars with decanted syrup in to work. No coffee is the same without a splash of ginger, vanilla or caramel.

This jam jar carrying obsession is encouraged by my work friend, Deena! During the Olympics we worked on the same team and were known for our decanting antics, passing jars around the office in order to get our fix.

I'm a silly Soph, I never realised exactly how much sugar/additives/preservatives are in shop-bought coffee syrups. After finding this simple recipe on Elsie & Emma's site I have vowed to always make my own. I don't know why but I thought it'd be a lot more time consuming to make my own than it really is. This method only takes 2 minutes and tastes exactly like the real deal.

Vanilla syrup:

225g granulated sugar

250ml water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat the water and sugar over a low heat, until the sugar has dissolved fully.

Add the vanilla extract and stir.

Decant into any bottle/jar/dispenser you fancy.

I got a glass bottle with a secure lid from TK Maxx for £2. Empty jam jars could also work. Just make sure you work out how much syrup your jar/bottle/dispenser can hold. This recipe makes just less than 500ml, so double for a bigger bottle etc.

Yes, there's loads of sugar in this, but at least you know what exactly you're getting. Next time I'm going to try a sugar alternative like Stevia. I may even get a little adventurous and try making a caramel one.

Custard creams are my absolute favourite classic biscuit so I thought it was about time I attempted to bake my very own. I found the recipe for these on Edd Kimber's blog and gave them a little Sophie twist...hearts and pink biscuit dough!

Pulse the flour, custard powder and icing sugar in a mixer until well combined.

Add in the butter, food colouring and vanilla extract and continue to pulse until the mixture begins to come together. (At this stage my biscuit dough looked more like breadcrumbs, so I took the dough out of the mixer and kneaded).

Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for 30 minutes in the fridge until firm.

Roll out the dough on a well floured surface and roll to a thickness of 3-4mm.

Cut the biscuits with a small round cutter and place on a lined baking tray. I halved the biscuits between two baking trays. One with plain round biscuits and the other with a heart shaped centre cut out.

Chill for a further 15 minutes.

Whilst the biscuits are chilling, preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Bake for 12 minutes, or until golden. Its quite important to keep an eye on the biscuits, I found that the tray with heart centres was done by 8 minutes so took that one out early.

Place on a wire rack to cool.

To make the custard filling, beat the butter in a bowl until light and creamy. Approximately 5 minutes.

Slowly incorporate the icing sugar and custard powder and continue to beat until smooth.

I found the custard filling to be quite firm so used a teaspoon to sandwich the two biscuits together.

The dough is quite short so the biscuits have a shortbread type of texture. I think I'd change the recipe slightly so that they're more crisp than crumbly. I'm not sure if adding a little more butter would work?

In my university days, this was my most successful bake...I put a lot of time into the kitchen to avoid writing about Fourier Transforms. Surprisingly...nearly two years on...I couldn't tell you now exactly what an FT is, but, I can bake and I did learn that the sour cream in this makes for a really moist bake. Handy.

This cake is an ode to these days in my wee little flat, and the beautiful cake stand I once had for this cake to perch upon (it got smashed by some new, not so nice, flat cohabitants).

I didn't make the frosting in thosedays as I thought the blueberry studded top looked so impressive on its own. (The blueberries sink to the bottom of the cake mix whilst basking in the oven...when you up turn the bundt the top is studded with blueberry jewels). However, this time I decided to go all out with frosting and to add a little twist...

After buying The Flavour Thesaurus I've been thinking a lot about flavour pairings. I was trawling the internet, magazines and books for the perfect blueberry recipe before finally realising I had it all along. With a few tweaks to the Hummingbird Bakery's blueberry cake, this time I now have frosting and zesty lemons!